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Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

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Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#551

Post by TheCoelacanth »

cmh89 wrote: post #517
s1artibartfast wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA is currently obsessed with race, and this influences all discussions. I agree that this topic could be more accurately and inclusively framed as how to improve outcomes for low income students, or children with absentee/incarcerated parents, or children of addicts. Unfortunately, some people care much more about racial outcomes than they do about any of those I mentioned. The point of the racial framing IS to…

>The USA is currently obsessed with race, and this influences all discussions. The United States has always been obsessed with race. The south had completely different schools based on a child's skin color. What makes you think this is new?

It goes back much further than that, literally to the founding of the country. Our constitution has provisions specifically protecting the slave trade. The way we elect our president was designed specifically to give slave owners more power. Racism is an integral part of US history and always has been. You literally cannot make sense of US history without it.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#552

Post by tapatio »

alexb_ wrote: post #277
mr-wendel wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additional food for thought from a educator's perspective: "I wanted to be a teacher but they made me a cop" https://www.experimental-history.com/p/i-wanted-to-be-a-teac...

>So if people need some extrinsic motivation to engage in my class, one of two things might be happening. Maybe they’re just not interested in what I have to offer. That’s fine! They should take a different class. More likely, though, the problem is me: I'm somehow subverting people’s natural curiosity. Maybe I’m doing that by inflicting evaluation on my students—rules! points! policies!—instead of just showing them…

Why do we all need to be impacted by the "bad for education" areas?

Maybe kids that are ready can just start going to college earlier or even skip high school altogether. Yes, they'll have to pay but a community college will suffice. They could probably just take the GED test and pass at 14 years old. I can only imagine how dumbed down that test is.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#553

Post by s1artibartfast »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #541
s1artibartfast wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, many European countries have a history that includes slavery and an arguably better track record of successful abolition and reconciliation. Maybe there's something the US can learn.

European countries' history with slavery largely consists of having it in far off colonies and then cutting those colonies loose. The US doesn't have the luxury of making a clean break.

Im not saying there aren't differences, there certainly are.

Do you think that the US has been doing such a good job managing race relations that we can take a superior attitude and reject commentary?

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#554

Post by tapatio »

pessimizer wrote: post #205
tapatio wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We practice equal opportunity in the USA. They should move to Russia or some other commie country to practice equal outcome.

We don't practice equal opportunity in the USA.

What do we practice then? In this country if you work harder/smarter, you are more successful.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#555

Post by cowboysauce »

feoren wrote: post #491
DSMan195276 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've gotten a whole lot of replies that seem to miss your point, but I'd say that I've experienced that exact thing - to get to Calc in your senior year you needed to have gotten on a very specific track of math courses back in middle school, and likely your parents needed to know about it to make sure you got in. Otherwise, what appeared to be a very inconsequential choice at middle school actually decided your en…

> it's a pretty common joke how virtually inapplicable calc is to us If you think calculus is not important to software development than you are not bothering to look. Just a few examples: - Calculus was the first math class I took that gave a clear definition of what a "function" really is. Do you use functions? - Analyzing the properties of functions to see what operations made sense to do or not (e.g. continuous v…

> Do you use functions?

Unless you're using Haskell or something similar, mathematical functions and what most programming languages call "functions" are very different and are better referred to as procedures. Mathematical functions don't have any concept of some basic constructs like variables (state in general), I/O, or even sequential computation. Pure functional languages have to use things like monads to model procedures.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#556

Post by tapatio »

goatlover wrote: post #407
tapatio wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might not be a bad idea. But it still doesn't solve the problem of some people learning/advancing quicker than others.

Why is that inherently a problem? Some people will always learn/advance quicker than others in just about any are of life for a variety of reasons. The only way to "solve" that problem generally would be some very dystopian form of social control.

I fully support kids being able to advance as quickly as they can or want to. The current system does not support that.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#557

Post by sergiogjr »

feoren wrote: post #518
AlanYx wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but the objections are not typically phrased in the type of language you're using. A typical example is something like this, from Louie (J.Res.Math.Ed. 2017): >Through the lens of the culture of exclusion, students who appear mathematically gifted are viewed as intelligent, whereas others are myopically perceived as “slow,” “remedial,” and “special needs.” These perceive…

Okay, have these guys seen how people who are really good at football are treated? And all those guys who are great at guitar keep getting all the chicks, goddammit! There's no reason to think that mathematics has any more of a "culture of exclusion" than any other field of study, vocation, or sport.

Well, haven't you noticed how the DIE cult is already all over entertainment? Sports teams kneeling down because of "oppression" and pop culture being absolutely dominated by sex and violence propaganda? Specially those being produced targeting the "minorities".

It's a brave new world.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#558

Post by DSMan195276 »

feoren wrote: post #491
DSMan195276 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've gotten a whole lot of replies that seem to miss your point, but I'd say that I've experienced that exact thing - to get to Calc in your senior year you needed to have gotten on a very specific track of math courses back in middle school, and likely your parents needed to know about it to make sure you got in. Otherwise, what appeared to be a very inconsequential choice at middle school actually decided your en…

> it's a pretty common joke how virtually inapplicable calc is to us If you think calculus is not important to software development than you are not bothering to look. Just a few examples: - Calculus was the first math class I took that gave a clear definition of what a "function" really is. Do you use functions? - Analyzing the properties of functions to see what operations made sense to do or not (e.g. continuous v…

> I'm honestly sick and tired of seeing these crazy anti-learning comments

I don't know why you're mad at me, I _literally said_ "I'm still happy I learned it", along with saying we should be teaching more advanced math. I said it was a common _joke_, not that we literally never use it. I went on to say it was "less useful" than other math you'll learn, not "not useful at all". Perhaps you should read the whole comment before getting so angry.

And no, just because I don't use calculus all day doesn't mean I "copy code from StackOverflow", I honestly don't know how you could come to such a silly conclusion (or how you think knowledge of calculus is necessary to understand most data structures). Do you think self-taught developers who never learned calculus are just incapable of learning or using data structures and algorithms, and don't know what functions are? I can tell you quite confidently that they can and do, because I know many of them.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#559

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

cauch wrote: post #471
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

replace "normal" with "slow" and "advanced" with "normal", and you will discover: 1. Why this initiative is a problem 2. That simply rewording "slow" to "normal" and "normal" to "advanced" seems to constitute the majority of your argument, without which there isn't a good one

And replace "slow" by "terribly fast" and "normal" by "advanced" and, magic, now everyone gets advanced classes. Estimating if the pace is "fast" or "normal" is very very complicated. Only an idiot will pretend they know for sure that "this is too slow" (unless obvious extreme cases which don't correspond to what we have here) Also, apparently, the measure was to replace advanced algebra by advanced data science whic…

it's actually not that complicated, just look at what other schools in the country do, or what these did before the change

then, with that data, you will know to replace "terribly fast" with the original "slow", and can try to make your proposal not depend purely on the semantics of inaccurately renaming "slow" to "terribly fast"

remember, you are the one who started these word games by renaming the slow curriculum the normal one, when the normal one is the one they had before these changes, the one which reflected the norm (hence the name) in the US

if you think that one is actually "advanced", that's upon you to convincingly make the case for, otherwise we default back to the above, but a purely semantic argument is pretty weak on its own anyways

also, the last paragraph of your post presents a false dichotomy: creating a new class doesn't require cancelling advanced algebra (advanced advanced algebra?)

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#560

Post by TheBigSalad »

slothtrop wrote: post #415
TheBigSalad wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's honestly nonsense. The way he frames the other side of this argument as "dumbing down" the education system in the name of racial equality. If this doesn't immediately set off your BS detector you need it tuned up.

You can dress it up any way you like, but that's effectively what it comes down to.

You could argue that, but it's not a given. Not a starting point. What makes algebra so much better than data science? It's certainly less practical.
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